Last night I watched part of the Cup of Russia figure skating competition. It might be on tonight, too.

One of my favorite skaters is Evgeni Pluskenko (sp???). He is not only a great skater, but his personality is so funny. He is just so matter-of-fact with his answers. I just think he is a hoot. He is also a very charismatic--not traditionally handsome, but he has such stage presence. It's like he "wins" just by virtue of the fact the he COMMANDS the ice. On a side note, he just got married and is just so much in love. He is so very cute. He just has this great personality, but he is very, very confident .... maybe even bordering on arrogance. However, he just said that he loves to skate, period... win or lose. Skating is his passion along with his new wife.

Now I also LOVE, LOVE American Johnny Weir. He is just a very lyrical skater... very emotional. He just doesn't have the same athleticism as Evgeni, plus I don't think Johnny has a "quad" jump in his arsenal. And then Stephan Lambiel(sp??) He's great; in fact, he can ALMOST "compete" with Evegeni technically, but Evegeni just has IT. He is just incredible to watch. I also really like Brian Joubert from France as well.

The women's competition might be tonight, but I'm not sure who is going to be there. Sasha Cohen is AMAZING, but sometimes she just can't keep it together. And I heard that Michelle Kwan is just coming back from an injury. I saw Michelle and Sasha compete just recently, and Michelle looked pretty sluggish. It was an audience vote, so Michelle won, but the judges gave the edge to Sasha. I also love Irina Slutskya(???) coz that girl has some guts. Apparently she had some sort of vascular disease?? I think that she had some sort of heart infection or something, and struggled to come back.

Ice dancing...Well I love Belbin and Agosto, but they probably won't be competing in the Olympics due to citizenship issues. Outside of those two, I haven't been really following Ice dancing that much coz my favorites Anissina and Peizerat retired from competion.

Pairs... Well I haven't been following that as much either. Actually I haven't followed pairs for a while. From what I've seen though, the Russian team (I can't remember their names) is AMAZING. Russia always has GREAT, GREAT pairs teams.

Anyway... I was just wondering if any of you all followed figure skating. I can't wait for the Olympics.

Skating fan here

I love figure skating

I use to ice skate alot when I was a youngen... Well, "younger"

fan

I love figure skating. I just can't get all of their names right. I recently watched a competition out of Japan. Everybody was falling down. It was crazy. Most of them didn't have any kind of endurance either. They were tired half way through their program. I can't wait to see the rest of the competitions.


M

Oh cool more fans!!! I've been a figure skating fan on and off for many, many years. I was really, really interested in the last Olympics, but sort of got away from following figure skating coz most of my favorite skaters retired from amateur competion and turned pro. I'm just now starting to follow it again, but there are still a few people whom I recognize.

I saw MOST of the last group of Olympic winners perform with the Champions on Ice tour. As incredible as they are on telivision, live they are just so much more impressive. It's amazing how FAST they skate. Television doesn't pick that up. Plus the height that they get on their jumps is just .

Yeah last Olympics, I was really rooting for Alexi Yagudin, Evgeni's rival, but now Evgeni is growing on me. In fact, I've always like Evegeni's attitude, but I just enjoyed Alexi's skating more. His Olympic performance to the Gladiator soundtrack was classic. Actually, Alexi is one of my most favorite skaters of all time.

Also, I was really sad for Michelle Kwan the last Olympics. I really wanted her to win, but it wasn't meant to be. This time around, she has a shot, but from what I've seen of her skating thus far, the rest of the field has moved ahead of her. It's seems like there is always these terrific young, new skaters that are faster and more athletic. That's not to say that Michelle won't win. Ya never know what might happen in Olympic competion.

It's good to know that there are more skating fans here on the forum.

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

I cannot wait to see you execute the Miguelito!

charlottegelin said:

I forgot about that. We still haven't decided what that is. It's probably jumping and landing on my face.


M

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

it's when you do a flying splits and your "boys" escape out the side of your undies

charlottegelin said:

All the while I maintain my composure. I smile and wave to the audience. Could you just imagine?

M

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

you can survive anything if you keep on smiling!!!

I think Sasha Cohen is cute, though she has a history of coming up short on the big stage. I STILL have a crush on Dorothy Hamill, and Michelle Kwan is the "grand old lady" of the sport, now.

Surya. She rocked.

ThreadBare said:

Surya is GREAT!!!!! I saw her perform live in Champions on Ice. I've never seen Dorothy Hamill perform live, but I'm always amazed at the fact that she doesn't seem to age. When I've seen her on TV, she STILL looks great and skates beautifully.

One of my favorite pairs teams was G&G... Sergei Grinkov(??) and Etaterina Gordeava. I'm horribly with spelling their names. After Sergei died, I lost interest in pairs even though Etarina went on to perform solo. I think she is such a pretty woman--very beautiful--and even though she doesn't have great extension (a la Sasha) or jumps (a la Surya) Ekaterina is such a passinate performer...She is such an artistic skater.


[Edited 1/4/06 5:44am]